Thursday, June 01, 2006

Life's Formula for Success: A Tribute to Mike Mentzer

It may seem strange that I am writing a tribute article regarding Mike Mentzer. I'm a psychologist who works primarily with professional traders in the financial markets, not a bodybuilder. And yet, when I wrote my first book on psychology and trading, Mike was one of the authors I chose to quote. His ideas inform my work with traders to this day.

How can this be?

Very simply, Mike's contribution was not limited to bodybuilding. He was an expert on methods for stimulating growth. Period. Muscle growth is one facet of human performance and development, but Mike facilitated other growth as well. He recognized that, in seeking ever higher levels of performance, we are ultimately stimulating the growth of competence and confidence. Most important of all, we are catalyzing the development of will.

I recently completed a book in which I reviewed every piece of research I could find on the topic of human performance. I examined research with professional athletes, performing artists, surgeons, chess players, and traders. My studies took me from NASCAR racetracks and the development of world-class pit crews to the pits of the major world futures exchanges. One of the things I learned was something called the "Ten Year Rule". In a nutshell, the rule states that it takes at least ten years of sustained practice and effort to develop expertise and elite performance in any domain.

My research discovered that *how* this practice was structured was every bit as important as the duration of the practice. In other words, if practice did not offer the right amount of challenge--not too easy to become boring, not too difficult to become frustrating--and the right amount of feedback to permit learning and development, ten years of practice would simply amount to one year repeated ten times.

Mike knew all of this before I had ever begun my research. His principles of high intensity training are principles that govern *all* growth and development--not just those of the body. The greats in any field of endeavor have tested themselves again and again to the point of failure, growing and developing in the process. They progressively tackle challenges just past their comfort levels and thus build competence, confidence, and will.

If there is one formula for success in life, it is this: to develop yourself, train. And to develop yourself to your fullest, train to failure. Maximum effort stimulates maximal growth.

Mike will always be remembered as a world-class bodybuilder and athlete. Let us not forget, however--at this fifth anniversary of his passing--that he was also a great teacher and psychologist. He understood that the gym is a metaphor for life itself: a breeding ground for making us the best we can possibly be.

If you hit life the way Mike hit the gym, you cannot help but be a success.

About Me

Author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003), Enhancing Trader Performance (Wiley, 2006), The Daily Trading Coach (Wiley, 2009), and Trading Psychology 2.0 (Wiley, 2015) with an interest in using historical patterns in markets to find a trading edge. As a performance coach for portfolio managers and traders at financial organizations, I am also interested in performance enhancement among traders, drawing upon research from expert performers in various fields. I took a leave from blogging starting May, 2010 due to my role at a global macro hedge fund. Blogging resumed in February, 2014, along with regular posting to Twitter and StockTwits (@steenbab). I teach brief therapy as Clinical Associate Professor at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, with a particular emphasis of solution-focused "therapies for the mentally well". Co-editor of The Art and Science of Brief Psychotherapies (American Psychiatric Press, 2012). I don't offer coaching for individual traders, but welcome questions and comments at steenbab at aol dot com.